Run Through Dreams
by OhMyGoshsickles
Summary: Post Journey's End, Rose navigates the emotional fallout as best as she can.


Run Through Dreams

 _NOTES:_

 _-We're given some context clues in "Journey's End" and the episodes prior that lead me to believe that we're supposed to assume that Rose did have some contact with the Torchwood in Pete's World, and was able to return between jumps using the Dimension Cannon, but personally I'm not buying it. The Doctor said himself that punching holes in space and time weakens the stability between the two worlds, (and then gave us a fun little demonstration with the glass wall in Torchwood 1, if you remember) and I can't imagine that Rose would just… ignore that. So for angst plot purposes I choose to believe that she traveled from dimension to dimension without returning home, hence the time difference that she discusses with Jackie in this fic. In fact, the canon of this fic is highly influenced by rosa_acicularis's fic Tomorrow is a Long Time, which, though currently unfinished, is exceedingly excellent, and I recommend you reading._

 _-I know in "Father's Day", the episode where Rose and Nine go back and see Pete's death, Jackie is still played by Camille Coduri and so is probably supposed to be in her late 20's when she had Rose, as apposed to 19, which I say she is. However, I can't imagine that if that was the case she could possibly have given birth to Tony Tyler 19 years later. Even with my alteration she would have been around 38, which is cutting it pretty close! I'm left to assume that she was under excellent care in Pete's world (being the wife to a millionaire) or that their prenatal medicine is somehow more advanced than ours. Anyway, I think that Jackie Tyler as a young mother ads some depth to her relationship with Rose, and certainly helps explain her aversion to the Doctor, beyond the obvious. (Jackie Tyler won't be raising no alien grandchildren! No sir!) In any case, this is all me applying logic to Who, which we all know should never be done, and so probably should be disregarded anyway._

 _-As a final note, this was originally meant to be a multichapter story, and maybe some day it will be, but until then I think it stands alone quite well._

* * *

The trip back from Norway passes in strange bursts of condensed time. Rose isn't sure if it's the rippling aftereffects of the reality bomb being destroyed, or just the extent of her journey finally catching up with her, but either way it seems that every time she blinks she's missed something else. Her brain is a faulty radio set on the wrong frequency, tuned into another universe and receiving only garbled static in return. Eventually Jackie just stops trying to engage her in conversation.

They catch a ride into the nearest town, or rather; Jackie runs out into the road to stop a van and the Doctor talks the alarmed family driving it into giving them a lift, and from there manage to get in touch with Pete, who promises to send them a private zeppelin. After that it's another ride to an airfield, this time in a cab, and then an hour wait in an airport as the zeppelin is procured and prepared for takeoff. The Doctor, other than brief conversations in Norwegian with their respective drivers, is unsettlingly silent. He sticks close to Rose's side throughout the journey, alert despite her constant drowsing, hovering irritatingly just beyond her peripheral but never close enough to touch. He has not taken her hand again, and Rose courts madly with the idea of shoving him away even though she knows it'll do nothing but anger and confuse them both. It is not him she's angry at, him she's mourning. (Though it is.) He offers her the smallest of smiles when she does look at him, but won't hold her eyes, turning to study something else if she tries to pin him for too long. She can tell he's thinking hard about something, but can't bear to focus on the rising dismay that comes to her when she considers what that something might be. Instead she slumps into one of the hard plastic chairs in the airport waiting room and wavers in and out of consciousness, dreaming in mad, sun-bleached bursts of a lion with two heads, one angling to press his mouth to the dip of her throat, the other turning away, always saying goodbye. When she startles awake it's to her mother's hand on her arm, telling her that the zeppelin is ready. The Doctor is already on board.

They don't get back to the Tyler estate till four in the morning. Pete, bleary eyed and in his pyjamas, greets them at the door. He hugs Jackie and Rose and then stands there in the doorway, staring at the Doctor, looking a bit bewildered.

"Hello," the Doctor says, "This probably isn't what you expected, but-."

Pete raises his hand; palm out, full stop. "It can wait till morning. Rose, your room's ready for you. Doctor, uh…" He glances from him, to Rose, then back again. "I suspect you can take one of the spares, if you want. Jackie," he offers her his arm. "I'm going back to bed."

Jackie takes his arm and then pinches him affectionately. "Well back off to bed with you then. I'll be down in a mo', just want to check on Tony." She turns back to look at the Doctor and Rose, her face halfway to disapproving but largely worried, "Well go on you two, you look half dead standin' there. Off to bed."

The Doctor angles his head toward Rose but his eyes don't quite land their mark, flicking just over her head. Fatigue settling like acid reflux on the back of her tongue, she points up the stairs. "My room's that way. And the guest rooms. Come on."

He follows her, still saying nothing, all the way to the door of her bedroom. When she turns to point him down the hall he nods absently and gets halfway there before suddenly turning back. He stares straight at her, eyes cutting with a molten focus.

"Do you live here?" He asks.

It's the first full sentence he's spoken to her in almost four hours. "What? No. This is just my room for visits."

"Right." And then, just as intently, "Where do you live?"

Rose gravitates toward her door, suddenly unsure how to stand parallel to him. She is close to dreaming now; mind hazy like a low-grade fever. She wets her lips and thinks she sees the Doctor tracking her tongue before his eyes dart back upwards. "Well, nowhere now. I sold my flat back when the dimension canon started working. But I used to live in London, near Torchwood. …I work for them now, you know."

He nods, a little less severe. "I remember."

"Right." She tugs her jacket tighter and- God, she thinks, her jacket. How long has she been wearing these clothes? A jolt of disgust, almost like panic, almost like hysteria, cuts through the haze, and she turns away, hand already turning the door handle when he speaks again.

"Did you live alone?"

Voice just a shade too severe, her head whips around, "What?"

"Did you live with anyone, in your flat?"

"What? No, I. I was alone." His expression shifts imperceptibly, but Rose can't bear to analyze it. It's too hard to look at him now that he's staring straight at her, too easy to remember that he's someone else. "Don't worry about me," she says quickly, even though just forming the words feels like coughing up black tar. "You don't have to come and live with me or whatever, I'm not expecting that. You don't even have to stay in London. You can travel 'round and save the world or invent the airplane or something. I'm not expecting things to be the way they were. I'm not even-. I'm not even sure I know how to do that anymore so, just, don't worry about me." She's half into the bedroom when once again his voice calls her back.

"Rose." She sticks her head into the hallway, mouth pressed close, and his expression has totally changed. A smile that's gone soft around the edges, almost tender, but with the underlying shimmer of a sparking live-wire, some desperate ache. "Sorry. Goodnight."

She stares at him. "S'fine, night."

Without waiting to watch him go she turns and closes the door behind her, a feeling in her stomach like a rubber band trying to yank her back into the hall. Ignoring the urge she strips naked, longing for a shower but lacking the will to stand upright any longer, and climbs into bed. The sheets are silky clean and smell like fresh linen, a hint that someone has changed them recently, expecting an upcoming visit. A wave of emotion crashes over her, her throat going tight, and she exhales long and slow, a prolonged sigh. She had never intended to return to this room.

She tries not to think of this new Doctor, that intimate stranger, prowling at the end of the hall. Will he have stripped down bare, as she is, dark eyes probing the ceiling, wondering about the days to come? Or is he fully dressed, pacing the room in his worn white converse, parsing out the easiest way to tell her he is leaving?

She doesn't know. She doesn't know him anymore.

The bone-deep exhaustion that had plagued her all day abandons her suddenly. She spends the next few hours wide-awake, eyes open, listening for a pair of footsteps approaching down the hall- a knock on the door that never comes.

* * *

The next time she opens her eyes it's to blearily discover that the sun has come up and it's just past ten in the morning. She rolls over and presses her face into her pillow, head foggy and aching, like someone's stuffed cotton balls behind her eyes. The little sleep she'd gotten had been agitated and dreamless, Technicolor flashes of light and noise that left her dripping in sweat every time she'd tried to wake from them. She hauls herself from the bed, unpleasantly sweat-sticky, and into the en suit bathroom for a shower.

When she finally makes it downstairs for breakfast her mum is sitting on a barstool at the island in the kitchen, still in her robe, frowning at a magazine. Tony, not yet sturdy enough to balance on a stool, is sitting in a highchair and gracelessly shoving toast in his mouth with his small hands.

Though feeling somewhat off balance at the domesticity of the scene, it occurs to Rose now that she is starving. "Morning." She says, heading straight for the breadbox.

Jackie puts the magazine down, looking after her. "Morning, sweetheart. You're up a bit late. Suppose you were exhausted, after all that nonsense."

 _All that nonsense._ Her mum really is amazing sometimes. Crossing dimensions, almost getting slaughtered by aliens, saving the multiverse; in the end all that is to her is a whole lot of nonsense.

Rose shakes her head disbelievingly, popping some bread in the toaster and going to fetch the butter. She tries to sound casual when she asks, "Is the Doctor up?"

"Oh, he was up hours ago, before even I was. He went with your dad into work. Pete thought he'd like to see what they were doing over there. They left a note, see?" She pushes a piece of paper across the counter, and Rose turns to take it. The note confirms what Jackie's said but doesn't say much else. Rose feels a twinge of annoyance, though she's not sure why. It's not like she'd expected him to wait around for her; he never had before. Anyway, she has no idea what she even wants to say to him after their strange, stilted conversation last night.

Toast freshly buttered she joins her mum at the counter. Tony looks away from where he is happily squeezing a piece of bread in his fist long enough to notice her. "Rose!" He shouts, dropping the toast and waving his buttery, crumb-covered hands in the air. Distracted from her worries for a moment, Rose leans over to kiss his head, smoothing down a tuft of the strawberry blond hair he'd inherited from his father.

"Hey, little monster, did you miss me?"

Jackie gives her a look, "He was always asking about you, you know. Missed his big sister spoiling him, he did."

Rose can't help but grin at him, even though it makes her heart ache. She had been so prepared to leave this- all of this. Prepared enough that she had tried to think of it as little as possible. And now here it is, staring her in the face quite literally. Tony looks back at her with the sudden absurd gravity only children seem to be able to pull off.

"Did you get the monsters?" He asks seriously.

Jackie scoffs loudly, but something in Rose goes soft and warm. Of course she hadn't been able to tell him what she was doing before she left, he would have never understood. For all Tony knew, something had been bad out in the world and his big sister Rose had gone to fix it. Whatever conclusions he had jumped to were his own, spurred along by stories Mickey liked to spin whenever Jackie wasn't listening.

"Of course," Rose says, "I took right care of those monsters." She reaches out to ruffle his hair again and then freezes, pushing it back off his forehead. There's a scar there, still pink and healing, over his left eyebrow. All at once her foggy contentment clears, replaced by a sickening sweep of anxiety.

A week before Rose had left, Tony had fallen down and nicked his face on the edge of a table. Jackie had thrown an absolute fit, but he'd been completely fine, no other injury except for the gash on his head. The doctor's had promised it would heal without leaving a permanent scar. Had said that it would be fine, gone in a matter of months.

Rose drops her hand. Tony looks up at her.

"Mum, how long has it been since you saw me last?"

Jackie doesn't even look up, "Just over four months, innit?"

Rose's stomach does something interesting then. Something that makes her feel like she's about to fall off the barstool. She tries to think back to what time of year it'd been when she first left. End of January, wasn't it? So it was what, June? So little time had passed for them. But for her…

"How old would you say I look?" Rose prods hesitantly, head swiveling around to stare at her mother. "If you were gonna take a guess."

Jackie finally turns to meet her eye. She raises her eyebrows, "Well you haven't put on any makeup yet, dear, so you may want me to hold my tongue."

Rose thinks she may be sick. "Right," she says, pushing the plate of toast away from her and hopping off the stool. "You know, I'm not that hungry, I think I'm gonna go lay back down."

"Oh, alright!" Jackie calls after her, "No need to get into a snit, I was only joking!"

Rose pauses in the doorway, shaking her head, rattled, "I'm not mad, mum. Don't worry about it. I'm just… you're right; I'm just still tired. Didn't sleep well. I'll be down for dinner later."

The trip back to her room passes in a blur, and when Rose gets there she realizes it's because she has been holding her breath. She presses herself against her door, exhaling slowly between her teeth, trying not to let the panic pressing against her chest suffocate her.

She had known since the beginning that time moved differently in this universe than her original. She had also known that time was collapsing as she moved parallel to parallel, and there was no real way to measure how long she'd really been gone. But in the rush of everything, somehow she had forgotten. Or no, maybe she had known all along. Maybe she just hadn't wanted to realize.

She slowly peels herself away from the door and makes it back into bed, slumping awkwardly with her back against the headboard. This, more than anything, is throwing her, and she can't say why. It's just one more thing out of her control, and that's fine, she's just going to have to get used to it, but. But.

Limbs like dead weights she rolls onto her side and pulls a pillow over her face. She's not going to panic. She's been through too much to lose it over something small like this.

The steady expansion and compression of her lungs is a mantra, and she thinks of nothing else as she reminds herself how to take a breath. And then another. And then another. Until she once again falls into a shallow and uneasy sleep.

* * *

When she opens her eyes next the pillow has fallen away from her face and she has a killer crick in her neck. Darkness has fallen around her, the room barely lit by the glow of the fading sun, and when she looks at the alarm clock on her bedside table it reads 7:52 pm. She's missed dinner.

Her eyes are hot and sticky, and her head aches dully when she pulls herself upright, though the fuzziness is gone, which she counts as an improvement. She considers getting back into her pyjamas and trying to sleep it off, but her stomach gurgles loudly at the thought, reminding her faintly of the toast she'd scorned hours ago. With a long sigh, she forces herself to stand.

There's a light on in the kitchen when she gets there, which surprises her. She'd assumed everyone had already returned to their rooms for the evening. Pete watching telly or reading in bed, Jackie trying to get Tony in a bath, the Doctor doing… whatever the Doctor found to amuse himself…

Of course, when she rounds the corner who else could it be but the Doctor, standing at the island she'd vacated all those hours ago, up to his elbows in the guts of what looks to be their… microwave? He's holding a screwdriver, a non-sonic one, and wearing a pair of glasses that definitely don't belong to him. (The other Doctor must have taken his pair—the other pair. The original Doctor must have taken the original pair...) He's frowning at whatever he's fiddling with when she walks in, but when he spots her in the doorway he grins brilliantly. Her heart squeezes a bit, caught off guard. His expression is totally different from their last conversation, his muted intensity gone. Now he seems brighter than ever, glowing at 100 watts.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty," he says pleasantly, playfully. "Wondered when you'd be up. Gotta say I could've used you at dinner- also affectionately known as Jackie Tyler Interrogation Hour. Have you ever been at the receiving end of one of her lectures? I've been grilled by Judoon, tortured by Daleks, but thirty minutes with that women and I'm spineless as a cooked noodle. Trust me, I'll admit to anything."

Rose joins him at the counter, running a hand through her bed-mussed hair and deciding to try her hand at his new sunny attitude. "I'll keep that in mind next time all the biscuits go missing. Why didn't she wake me?"

He huffs, "Thought we'd already decided that Jack was the one who ate all the biscuits, my name's been cleared. And she said she thought you wouldn't want her to. Said you got a bit stroppy after she made some comment about your age?" He raises his eyebrows, looking at her expectantly.

Rose sighs heavily. "'Course she did. Never mind, I'll apologize tomorrow. Any chance there's leftovers?"

He nods toward the fridge. "There's a roast and potatoes. Hope you weren't looking forward to them being warm, though."

She casts a glance at the exposed innards of their former microwave, heading over to the fridge. It's true there are leftovers, and someone's clearly set aside a portion for her on a plate and wrapped it in cling film. She feels a burst of dizzying gratitude at the unexpected kindness, and then an answering swell of bewilderment at the realization that that kindness has become foreign to her. "Any chance of you telling me what you're doing with that?" She asks over her shoulder, trying to shake off her disorientation. "Was it broken, or?"

"Who says things have to be broken to be fixed?" He counters, and she throws him an exasperated look, retrieving the plate.

"That's such a bloke thing to say," She informs him, grabbing a set of silverware and settling across from him at the counter. "You sound just like Mickey," Mickey, who had left her again with just the ghost of a goodbye. She feels a pang of sorrow deep in her gut and tucks her tongue against the back of her teeth. Every topic is an emotional landmine, it seems. "If you're not careful saying things like that someone might think you were a regular old human like the rest of us."

"Pah," The Doctor says, returning to his tinkering, "I'll never be regular."

 _Can't argue with that one_ , she thinks, tucking into her cold meal. If she'd wanted she could have heated it up in the oven, but she's too hungry to care. And anyway, she'd long since given up the luxury of hot food. She isn't even sure when the last time she'd had a hot meal was. Back in the parallel universe with Donna, probably; back when she'd been working with UNIT. Back when she didn't have a name, just a goal, just a job to do. But that universe was gone now, just like all the other universes she'd walked through. Put right, as time tried to heal itself. Even the people she'd seen die, even the people she'd…

The scene seems too picturesque suddenly, unbelievable. Another fever dream she'll wake from soon. She places her fork carefully down on her plate and looks at the Doctor.

"How long did you travel without me?"

He glances up at her from over his borrowed glasses, hand stilling, and she attempts a smile.

"Just wondering."

He puts the screwdriver down, "Around eight years."

"Eight years," she echoes, and then shakes her head. "You don't look any older."

"I age slower than you," he reminds her, and then tips his chin upward, an addendum. "Well, aged. We're on the same track now."

She nods, staring absently at his hands, which still lay motionless on the countertop. She tries for a slice of honesty. "I found out today that, to them, I've only been gone four months," she admits. "That's why mum thinks I'm cross with her. I don't know why I was so shocked. It's not as if I haven't dealt with time being wonky when traveling with you. But now…"

"But now you're stuck. No Tardis. That time is gone," he finishes for her, voice grim. She's afraid to look up at him suddenly, afraid of what his expression might be. "How long was it for you, then?"

"I think," she swallows. "…Around four years. I couldn't keep proper track."

"So you're…" She looks up and he's squinting at her, "What? 25?"

She frowns at him, sure he's pulling her leg, and then makes herself laugh, almost cross, "Oh, come on, don't act like you can't tell just from looking."

His shrug is wry, "Really can't. Time sense isn't what it once was. It's quite annoying, really. Bit like waking up one day to find you've lost your sense of smell."

"Oh," her stomach flips uneasily. Somehow she'd almost forgotten how different this man is from the one she'd traveled with. …Well, is and isn't. Just like the Doctor to be two impossible things at once. "I'm sorry."

He shrugs again, casually picking back up the screwdriver and returning to whatever he was doing, but Rose still feels a bit sick. Her headache's returned full force.

She gets up and clears her plate, sweeping the rest into the rubbish bin. "Whose glasses are those?" She asks him, purely to say something.

"What? Oh, Pete's," he takes them off and frowns, rubbing at the lens with his sleeve. "Prescriptions not quite right. I asked Jackie for hers but she nearly bit my ear off, said she didn't want me 'doing any of my alien rubbish'. Honestly, your mother has a mouth on her, do you know that?"

"'Course," Rose says, and turns back round to give him a tired smile. "Where do you think I get mine from?"

He gives her a look, corner of his mouth lifting, "Fair point."

"We can go into the city tomorrow and get some new glasses for you, if you like." She offers, a bit hesitant, "Probably some new clothes too. That suit is going to go a bit ripe soon."

He frowns at her, clearly offended, "Is not!" And then, at her look, takes a tentative sniff at his underarm. "Blimey. You know, used to be I could control my sweat glands. Gonna miss that one, too. Might start a list."

He's joking, clearly means nothing by it, but she feels drained suddenly. She sits back down and rests her elbows on the countertop, rubbing her temples. Who is this man who sits before her? Who is he really? The Doctor she'd known, the whole Doctor, the one who'd guessed her age down to the minute and always smelled a bit unnervingly non-human, had swanned off and left her with… with what exactly? With who?

"Alright?" She can't miss the note of caution in his voice, and she shuts her eyes, head low.

"Just a headache."

"Ah." A moment of silence and then he's placed an affectionate hand on the top of her head, voice tentatively playful. "Well, it does feel a bit hollow in there-."

But his touch has trigged something in her, and a memory, one that she'd not thought of in almost five years time, comes suddenly to the forefront of her mind. _His hand on her head, her eyes closed, the touch of a foreign mind against hers-._

She thinks a thought. A thought so vicious it surprises her. A thought so vicious she doesn't want to recognize it. She jerks backwards from his touch, and his eyes go wide, startled.

"Sorry," he starts to say. He looks embarrassed, concerned. She doesn't know what she must look like. "Are you-?"

"Fine." She says, "I'm fine. Don't worry about it. See you tomorrow morning."

And then she slides off the barstool and strides from the room.

* * *

She lets him do his song and dance with Cassandra because he is rather brilliant at it, and she had grown sort of attached to her during their time together. Well, as attached as you can get to a person who's taken your body for a joy ride and tried to commit mass murder wearing your face. So she is genuinely remorseful when Cassandra-in-Chip's-Body falls in a dead faint into the lap of Cassandra-Before-She-Became-a-Flap-of-Skin. She even takes the Doctor's hand when she sees his grim expression. But after that she is Done. She is Out. She is ready to collapse.

The Doctor doesn't seem to notice the way she stumbles into the Tardis, but that's because he's too busy looking grave and fussing with the console. She can't spare his lack of attention any thought, primarily because she's having trouble formulating any thoughts at all.

Whatever Cassandra had done to her head with her compression machine had definitely been Not Very Good. She might even remember the Doctor saying it had been wildly illegal, though whether he had said that to her or Cassandra feels a bit unclear. A lot of things feel a bit unclear: Like why her memories from the past couple hours seem to have spliced themselves into memories of her childhood at the Powell estate, popping and fizzing as they cut back and forth, like they're playing on a corrupted film strip. Or why every time the Tardis beeps or chimes a different burst of color explodes behind her eyes. It feels as if her brain has been shoved off kilter and is now crammed up against the side of her skull. She touches to see if it's oozing out her ear and then slumps heavily onto one of the control room's seats, pressing her hands against her face.

"Rose?" The Doctor seems to have caught sight of her. The alarm in his voice runs electric across Rose's tongue, "Are you alright?"

Rose does her best not to move, fists still curled over her eyes. "My 'ead," she manages, "…'s bad." She had intended to follow it up with 'is bloody killing me' but the words had scattered somewhere in the process of getting to her mouth. Her tongue is like cotton, like warm leather, like beard stubble, like-.

"Ah," the hollow ringing of his step on the floor of the Tardis tells her that he's moved toward her. His hand comes down to touch the crown of her head, and suddenly she's sure it's the only thing keeping her brain from lifting straight out of her skull. She is grateful for this. Very smart man, her Doctor, for figuring out such an easy fix. "Probably just the lingering effects of the psychograph. The pain should be gone by late tomorrow, don't worry."

 _Brilliant_. "Fix it?" She negotiates, and the weight of his fingertips disappears. Bugger all, now what will keep her skull from unscrewing like the top of a jam jar? She briefly sacrifices one of the hands shielding her eyes to press gingerly at the top of her head, but it's much less effective than when the Doctor did it, so she puts it back.

"There's a way I could…" The Doctor says, sounding hesitant. "…I mean I could always just give you a sedative and send you off to bed and you'd sort yourself right eventually, but this would be more efficient. Much quicker…"

"Do it."

"You don't know what you're agreeing to."

Rose tries to hum angrily but it echoes through her teeth and tongue and neck so she stops. "MMmmm don't _care_."

She hears the Doctor sigh and turns away from her to fiddle with the Tardis' control panel. It lets off a series of trilling rings, which Rose understands as _buttercream, maroon, lavender rainstorm_ , before the Doctor's hands come to rest over hers and she is distracted.

"I've dimmed the lights," he says, clearly doing his best to keep his voice soft. "It should be alright if you open your eyes now."

She doesn't find the idea particularly appealing, but allows him to slowly pry her hands away from her face nonetheless. When they are lying limply in her lap but her eyes are still squeezed shut he taps her once on the cheekbone. "Come on now, open up."

She does, reluctantly, and finds him on his knees before her, one hand still holding hers, the other hovering by her face, caught mid-motion. The only thing illuminating the room is a soft golden light emanating from deep underneath the Tardis console, and it casts the Doctor's face in long shadows, highlighting just the edge of his jaw, the amber in his hair.

It is a bit easier to think coherently without all the miscellaneous information crashing about before her eyes, though when the Doctor nods absently and pushes her hair out of her face so he can see her better all she perceives is the ocean rushing past her, light off the water, the taste of salt-. The Doctor drops his hand.

"I have to know that you understand what I'm about to do before I do it." He says, eyes dark and careful. Or maybe they're shining gold and silver and he's grinning. It's impossible for Rose to tell. "This could be dangerous if you don't."

It's too disorienting to look directly at his face. She settles for squinting at the collar of his suit. "Right."

"Yes. …Well, imagine your brain is a filing cabinet." The suit collar rises and falls in a quick breath, and then he's off, picking up speed as he explains, "Well it's not, but just imagine it is. Filing cabinets have a good system of order, alphabetical, color-coded, what have you, and when the system gets messed with reorganizing has to happen. You have your own unique system of order- not exactly color-coded or alphabetized, but still good- that you've been building your whole life based on your experiences, emotions, memories- the like. Now Cassandra has an entirely different filing system and she thought yours was a bit rubbish so she, er, well the metaphor isn't perfect, but… lets say she did a bit of reorganizing. And now that she's gone you keep getting flashes of synesthesia, right? Sound comes out as taste, touch comes out as color, things like that? Your brain's trying to follow its regular organizational system but nothings where it's supposed to be. You're just getting whatever files been put in its place. …Well, not at all like that actually, but like I said, it isn't a perfect metaphor."

His suit jacket has started to give off bright sparks of color whenever he moves his shoulder. Rose closes her eyes again; if he keeps talking she's going to vomit. "And?"

"Yes, well. Do you remember what I told you a long time ago? About Gallifreyan telepathy? I do have the ability to sort of… go in and put everything back in its place. Re-reorganize by hand, if you'd let me."

In any other circumstances Rose might have figured it out sooner. However, things being what they are, it's a handful of moments before she opens her eyes to squint at him suspiciously. "'ou wanna rummage around in my 'ead."

The Doctor looks a bit pensive, eyes flicking away to consider her hand, white knuckled in his. "Well, only if you want. You have to give me permission."

She should probably be horrified. And she is horrified, kind of, though the horror is dampened by the swelling crashing of an ocean in her ears, and the smell of oak that's radiating off him like a perfume, and the turning nausea in her stomach that is a reminder that something is not right, something is very wrong…

"Alright."

His eyes snap back toward hers, and she closes them again to avoid the sudden white spots that bloom through her vision as if in reaction to his incredulous expression. "Really?"

"Yeah."

His voice is careful, too casual, "I thought maybe-. Well, new face and all…"

She squeezes his hand, perhaps a bit harder than necessary. "Trust you. Come on."

He absorbs this in silence for a moment, and then removes his hand from hers. "Right. Well then," Pulled from the sensory anchor of his hand, Rose finds herself hit with a rush of vertigo. The hum of the Tardis catches in her chest and echoes up and down her spine, flushing through her like a fever. She moans and sways forward. Without warning, the Doctor presses his fingertips to her temple.

It is disgusting. It is revolting. The first touch of a foreign consciousness on her mind creeps on her like a strangers hand on her thigh and Rose yanks backwards out of his grip, head ringing. Never has she felt repulsion like this before, entire body electric, mind terrifyingly clear as she can only think a single word with resounding volume: _NO_.

The Doctor looks uncomfortable but unsurprised, eyes tracking her as she shudders and presses a hand to her eyes, "Like I said, you have to give me permission."

"How?" She demands, pulse still thundering in time to the pounding of her head.

He doesn't answer. When she drops her hand he is staring at her. Just staring, face guarded, saying nothing. Finally, he reaches up slowly, telegraphing every movement, before he places his hands to her head and-.

Now that the initial wash of horror is expected, Rose is able to resist the urge to pull away from him. He falls into her deliberately, an almost physical thing, first a drop and then a stream of thought that she can feel growing and pooling between the hemispheres of her brain. The sensation of the Doctor in her head is like a whisper on the back of her neck, a finger tracing along her earlobe: something unseen and intimate. Instinct screams at her to cringe away; a deep-seated reflex that tells her that this is the biggest violation of self she could ever endure. Humans aren't meant to share themselves this way. Her thoughts are not meant for him to touch.

And yet. Experimentally—and she thinks absurdly of the litter of newborn puppies she'd once seen in a pet store, still blind and stumbling—she tries to nudge at the intrusion. The feeling does not change: the Doctor is impassive, respectfully poised. Annoyed, she prods harder, trying to get a grip on him. And then the air disappears from her lungs.

He is infinite, she realizes, a slow, creeping dread starting in her stomach and swelling upward. Touching on his consciousness, he is endless. Like looking into a water bowl and finding the bottom of a well- The bottom of an ocean. He is huge, and he will swallow her—oh god, he will engulf her, will consume her easily, take her dark and deep, lay her out paper thin before him, and he can—oh god, he will—.

But he's not. He's just waiting for her. Hovering just on the surface, resisting the urge to even touch. Ghosting with her like a second skin.

 _You need to give me permission._

She doesn't, and he knows that. Had he wanted to, he could have done this as soon as he'd thought of it. It would have been all too easy to push past her defenses. But he had waited, and he is waiting, and he will always wait for her, and, God, does she love him.

Slowly, painstakingly, she breaks herself apart for him. A white flag, a love note; she cracks her own barriers like an eggshell, splintering open. For a moment nothing—a pause, they're breathing together—and then in a rush of sensation he is there, hot water seeping through an open wound, pushing past her thoughts to something deeper. And god, it is overwhelming. It is too much- he is- She is drowning- he is- everywhere- the smell of him- the heat-.

Easier than shuffling a deck of cards (and she has been hustled by him at poker enough times to know he does so effortlessly) he whips through her memories at a sprint. She can only catch flashes of what he sees, echoed twofold in the space where he draws them from her and she remembers them in turn. Her mum, just nineteen and already widowed, a single mother with no job, leaving the telly on late into the night so she won't get lonely, won't have to hear the silence of the flat—the politics of childhood and growing up on the estate, finding all the good hiding places and learning how to keep them—meeting Shareen and tolerating Mickey, then liking him, then loving him—fights with her mum, fights at school, fights with her mates—her first crush, her first kiss, Jimmy Stone, touching her clumsily in the dark… (She only has time to think indignantly, "Leave those-!" Before the Doctor already has.) But also the feeling of sun on her face, a hand in hers, the bustle of traffic on her way to work, the flush of humiliation after getting shouted at, falling into bed after a long day, a loved one rubbing away an ache or pain, a peeling sunburn, the phantom sensation of still being pushed and pulled by the ocean when lying down to bed after a day at the beach…

He takes these things, these parts of her, these very human parts, and treats them gently. He does not stop to analyze or gawk, just passes through them, running the clinical but adoring hand of a librarian down the spine of her personal history. Bit by bit, he begins to set her right.

Rose is pleased to note that the sensation of his mind in hers has become less overwhelming than it was to begin with. True, he is everywhere, but he is there as an impartial third party, an inquisitive but harmless onlooker, nothing more. More than that the constancy of him gives her brain something consistent to focus on, swaddling her like a painkiller, a shock blanket. Now that she has recognized this, a new development becomes clear to her.

The connection between them is open, but it is open both ways. And though it is impossible to split her attention in her own brain, if she tries she can lower the feedback she receives from the Doctor's ministrations to a soft buzz. She can see, startlingly clearly, the doorway to the Doctor's mind that she had peered through before, open wide and ready for her to step though. Of course, she understands now that the doorway is a metaphor, and not a very good one. It is, if anything, the maw of a great pit, the jagged, ever-screaming mouth of a diamond mine. She could not just look. She'd have to jump.

She considers this, almost dizzy at the possibility. The Doctor, if he's aware of her attention, which she thinks he must be, makes no attempt to dissuade or distract her from the idea. It would only be fair- he has already done the same to her- and if she could understand him, if she could sneak past his barriers for a second, maybe she could understand they way he feels about her. Maybe she could even help him, sooth the ache he keeps tucked deep in his breast pocket like a secret he'll never tell.

But no, she won't. She never will. Rose has realized long ago she will only ever take what the Doctor chooses to give her. A man who's lost as he has; she could never bear to ask for more.

 _Done!_ the Doctor crows, shocking Rose into distraction. His mind in hers, which before had seemed so formless, rears into solidity at the word. Rose realizes with a touch of surprise that this is the first time he has spoken to her directly, even though she was conscious of the trade of information between them all throughout. Without warning, the weight of him, the gentle scrape of his thoughts against hers, begins to lift.

She understands at once that she will never know loss like this again.

The spaces where his mind begins to pull itself from hers echo cold and empty, caverns she'd never have noticed if he hadn't shown her what it felt like for them to be filled. She wants to cry, or maybe is crying, the phantom limb of his thoughts in hers as gut wrenching as a death. For a moment the loss seems never-ending, an ouroboros of grief, self-perpetuating and forever, turning back to consume itself. And then the moment passes, and she knows the Doctor is gone.

Gradually Rose comes back to herself. Something is cold and wet on her face; Her own tears, dripping down her neck and into the collar of her shirt.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor asks, drawing back slowly, and then he seems to become aware of the tears on her face. His voice turns panicked, "Rose? I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

He puts a hand on her cheek, trying to turn her jaw so he can see her fully, and she tugs away from him, pushing at his shoulder in an effort to achieve some distance. "S'fine," she croaks, using her free hand to wipe her eyes. "S'just a bit intense, innit?"

"Yes, it can be." He still looks worried, and pushing him away is only going to make him more so, so she forces herself to drop the defensive arm between them. She pats his cheek appreciatively instead, aiming for something light in the face of the incredible weight in his expression.

"I… I really do feel better, thank you."

He looks doubtful, mouth drooping sideways, "You're sure?"

"Yes, no more of that," with a fluttering hand she gestures to the room, "tasting colors rubbish. All's right with the world."

Tentatively he touches the pads of his fingers to her cheek, whisking away the last touch of tears, "And you're-."

"Alright, you." Sure it's the only way to sooth his worrying, she grabs him under the arms and tries to lift him toward her. She's not in the position to get the right leverage but he gets the idea and comes willingly, wrapping his arms around her in a hug, half slumped against the chair. "I'm fine, see? Quit worrying."

He exhales what might be a laugh, or maybe a sigh, and holds her tighter. "That's me, worrier extraordinaire."

Later that night Rose will find herself lying in bed and feel irritated, maybe resentful, at how easy he had found it devour her. Like her memories were a sampler platter he could taste at until he found his appetite sated with something juicier. How transparent she will feel to him, her past a morsel consumed in a single bite, her future poised before his lips. Even later still she will become a woman who walks through worlds for him, and find she cannot draw up any memory that he does not somehow flavor. Much later than that she will find herself in a kitchen in a parallel world. A different version of him will have touched his fingers to her skull, and though neither he nor she will realize, have mirrored their past selves perfectly. The touch will unlock a memory, which will bloom in her brain to create a particularly vicious thought: _There are parts of me you will never own now. There are parts of me you can never touch._

But that is all much later. For now, Rose presses her face into the Doctor's neck and wonders what to do with a love like this: A love she cannot bear to question, and would rather let consume her.


End file.
